To expect that if a retired couple dont want to listen to children playing...

It's the same with people who move to a house near a pub where there will a certain amount of noise on summer evenings, near a church where the bells will ring on Sunday mornings, next to a school where there will be times when the pupils are outdoors letting off a bit of steam, next to a farm where there will be farmy smells and, possibly, a rooster crowing and so on. People should always visit the location at least two or three times at different times of day to check for noise, a sudden increase in traffic or whatever before buying. This couple have only got themselves to blame and should zip it.

When we bought our house, we backed onto a field and, had all the neighbours agreed, we could have bought the land and extended our gardens. Not everyone either wanted or could afford to buy so two houses were built on the land. Both of those have small children living there and, although we love to hear them play, sometimes it does get a bit much. Our solution has been to install two water features with noisy running water.

I agree with absent - tough!!

Glass think of it this way.
He'll have a lot more complaining to do in a few years' time when the little treasures are drinking cans of coke and eating packets of crisps on the way to and from school, and flinging the detritus into his garden, and those are some of the more innocent things that teenagers do
It's lovely that the children have somewhere to play safely outside, when so many don't or aren't allowed to.
Having a nasty adult to deal with is one of life's lessons.
I remember playing outside in the street, and a hazard was allowing the ball to get thrown into a certain Mr Swindell's garden. You then had to make the decision whether to knock on the door and ask for it back, and risk getting told off/your ball confiscated/your parents complained to, or simply enter the garden without permission to retrieve it and still risk all of the above.
So in answer to your question, the old people are being unreasonable, but they are fulfilling a stereotypical role so don't worry about it

I live in a house which has beautiful communal gardens which go down to the Thames. We have quite a lot of young families around us and their children do play in these gardens, sometimes quite noisily. I don't have a problem with that because I think young children get excited in their play and do make a lot of noise it doesn't bother me I accept it as part and parcel of where we live. The children are young and generally well behaved. I think we often hear these days how children have become couch potatoes and I therefore think it's nice to hear them tearing around and moving about and having fun in the summer. However, some neighbours, a couple who haven't had children, and who we are friendly with often complain. I do understand how they might find it annoying but I guess if you live in a community with young families around you have to expect a bit of noise and sometimes the adults can make more noise in the evenings when sitting out in the grounds with a glass of wine. I don't mind that either I like a bit of acceptable noise around me, such as the tinkling of glasses and laughter. However, I have previously posted on another thread I don't appreciate kids making a racket in coffee shops and restaurants I have to say that really does get on my nerves and I find some parents are quite inconsiderate in the way they let their children behave in that sort of situation.

glass if I had a penny for every time I had heard of this kind of neighbour I would be very well off indeed,I know from experience when selling new homes that most developments now have to include as part of planning being granted a play area for youngsters,with this man buying the show home he had obviously plenty of time to see that families where increasing on the development and as stated the children will soon grow and then after teenage years you will start to have more cars etc and more traffic as families progress,has he the mindset that I have meet with many showhome purchasers that he has more rights than anyone else ?? Buying the showhome does not equate a good purchase as all the fixtures and fitting and carpets etc would be gaurenteed from time of fitting not from when he moved in so he would have 3/4yrs of his NHBC gaurentee gone straight away.Lets hope for his sake his immediate neighbours do not move and someone with 3/4 tearaways move in next to him.Called payback time !!

I love the sound of children playing. I live near a school and hear excited chatter as they go in the morning and leave on a night as well as hearing them play during breaks and lunchtime. I'm also lucky to live near an ancient church complete with a full peal of bells which I get to enjoy on a Thursday evening when they practise and a Sunday morning plus the added bonus of weddings.

Both the school and the church were there long before I moved in. I was well aware that I'd hear them. It was my decision to take the house based on everything in the area.

There is a small town nearby where an estate was built next to a primary school. The school had been there for over 100 years. Now the children are only allowed to use the playing field for a set number of hours each weeks which are used for PE lessons. The rest of the time they all have to play on the cramped playground because residents of the estate complained that they were too noisy.

You're not being unresonable, glass. Grumpyman is. I like jane's comment about just wait till they're all teenagers .

YANBU (as they say in the other place)

No, not unreasonable glass Our estate was pretty much like the one you describe. Forty years ago we were all young families and there at the top of the street were some single, grumpy old men. I used to have requests for me to instruct the children not to raise their voices whilst playing on the grass, yeah right " don't shout while you are playing football "
My sister does not have children but says she loves to hear them playing, she says she has all eternity to be in silence.

Grumpy couple should move to one of those retirement complexes some of which never allow children to visit and some of which have limited times when they may visit. To be isolated with a bunch of other oldies is my idea of hell upon earth.

absent just wondering how this man would cope with my lot when both boys arrive in their cars and their girlfriends arrive in their's,when Lukie is playing at being Liverpool's next striker and Abbie using her musical skipping rope he would think the world had ended.I love to listen to children playing there is no better sound as far as I'm concerned.When my DGCs arrive at mine most of the neighbours like to see them as many have no visitors at all and as you know I make sure they are all OK the little ones always come with me if they are here and my two boys have been known to do little jobs that can't be done when you are that wee bit older,this man should not fall out with the neighbours as it is a lonely life if ever he is left on his own at some time in the future.

This happened to us when we moved into our present house. There was one couple who found the noise of children doing anything too much to bear so our DS hardly ever played in the garden and never (after the first time) in the small quiet dead end street. I think janeainsworth is right and there is a life-lesson to be learned here. It might be worth adding that this is a student area and the cheerful noise of youth rolling home at 3am or celebrating life nightly with music and laughter never seemed to bother the neighbour. Or maybe he hesitated to try to terrorise anyone older than ten. On a similar note, a local allotment holder is going to have to get rid of his cockerel even though he is allowed to keep chickens there because a resident on the newly built housing estate next door finds the early morning crowing disturbs his/her sleep. Live and let live unfortunately only seems to apply to people who behave reasonably.

Oh tell him to close the windows! It is a new house so will have double glazing. Then just ignore him silly old s..

Is it really true that as we get older we get grumpier? I have been told that we will get set in our ways and insist of having meals at set times. We will get more selfish and complain more. I do hope not.

I wonder if it's partly to do with our hearing as we get older? I was working in another office yesterday afternoon and the door was open. There were children playing outside and I was very aware of the noise they were making, even though I now struggle to hear what people are saying if there's any background noise [eg a kettle boiling]. When I left work I realised that the children were, in fact playing on the other side of the street, but it sounded much closer. It was as if the pitch of their voices overode all the other sounds [the one's I can no longer hear!]. Mind you, I'm not making an excuse for the grumpy old so and so who really shouldn't be living on an estate full of children. I live at the end of a cul de sac and when my children were small the neighbour who lived directly opposite used to stand outside with his arms folded glaring at them as they played [I think it's an 'old man thing' ]. I used to want to slap him!

A person who had a house backing on to our school field jumped over the fence , during an open air summer concert, and came to complain to me, as the head, that the china on his dresser was vibrating & that we were 'music mad' at the school. I chose to take it as a compliment.
School had been there since the late 1890s and was an Infant nursery school ..so not loud heavy metal drumming!

One grumpy old man where I lived actually went out into the communal gardens and confiscated some of the 4 year olds' leaves they were playing with . How sad is that! I agree with the previous posts about children becoming teenagers because their sweetness disappears for quite a while and is often replaced by empty beer cans and bad language. So appreciate them while they are still endearing.

An office that backed onto our school complained that the children were too noisy in the FS and little playground.....only used by 3, 4 and 5 year olds.

We said that if they continued to complain to the council about us we would inform the health and safety executive and their head office that they were using the fire escape for cigarette breaks rather than leaving the building completely.

They stopped complaining.

We enjoyed the tented sleepover of the teenagers next door at the end of term. They were just having good fun. Interestingly their parents were not happy about our neighbours on the other side not giving enough notice that their son was having an 18th birthday party in the garden. It stopped at midnight!

I was young once and so were my DSs. Live and let live please.

People forget so soon what their own children were like! My sister had four boys who would come back from clubbing and play loud music until 4 a.m. in their mid-terraced house. Her neighbours were very tolerant. Now one of the neighbours childminds her grandson, and my sister complains bitterly (to me) about the baby crying occasionally.

Perhaps he was born old or never had any fun as a child. We back on to a school and yes, there is are church bells not far away ringing away on a Sunday and bell ringing evenings - I love it. It makes the place alive! I was brought up in a school house and my mother used to say when the children rushed out at playtimes 'Cue for a scream!' Why children have to scream at the tops of their voices I don't know but I guess it does them good to let off steam.

I don't mind the sounds of children playing outdoors but what has really got to me this summer is the noise from the pub across the road when the children are out in the garden and parent(s) are inside way from it all. There was a little one there who was constantly shouting for Mum from when the pub opened at 12 noon on Saturday until much later in the afternoon. I do wonder where these young people get the money from to spend all and every afternoon in the pub.
I might add that the pub was here before us, but it was the one used by the local soldiers and it got noisy on a Thursday night( pay day) and at weekends especially if there was a football match on TV,but there was rarely ever children there. Now the soldiers have gone it's obviously being used by the locals again.
You do wonder why some people buy houses where they do though don't you ? An estate is going to have children and surely you must realise that before you buy the house. Maybe he got a good deal ! And is now living to regret it!

Some people moved into a house next to a 1000 year old minster and began a campaign to have the bells silenced. Needless to say they didn't get anywhere but let's be honest if you move next to an ancient church you can expect bells.

He was last to move in so the families were all in place along with the park. glamma yes he does have a lord of the manor attitude.

I think you may all have something about grumpy old men, when I look back I remember my DS playing football in the street and he came running in and said Grumpy green had kept his ball and said he was not returning it, next time I met the man in the street I addressed him as Mr Green to which he gave me a strange look and said my name is Mr * * * * * , I mentioned the fact to my Ds later and said his name was not green and he just laughed and said no Mum we all call him Grumpy Green as he wont let us play on the green.

glass.

Oh dear, what a shame for all the families. He might be slightly depressed if he has recently retired, it can happen. If not yes he is just a bit of an old grump. Do the young families have any interaction with him, or are they scared to get near him?

Remind your daughter that now school has started and the nights get darker quicker the kids will not be such an issue for him. Do agree with others if he finds smaller children noisy, look out when they are teenagers.

People do forget that they had children who probably did exactly the same don't they. Whatever the outcome, how nice your G.C. have an outside communial place to play together, makes up for him.